We all want to see the best in people, especially the people who work for us. Unfortunately, internal theft happens. When your business fails to properly monitor its inventory, your company is opened up to the risk of disgruntled employees taking advantage of your trusting nature, grabbing parts for themselves, friends or even for their side business.
The reality is, the cost of a stolen part isn’t just its value, it is the indirect costs associated with not being able to easily locate the parts – wasted time, poor customer service and frustrated employees.
To minimize the effect of internal fraud, consider the following tips from Pro Count West:
Reduce your risk of internal theft with a thorough employee screening process before hiring. Background checks are routinely utilized in HR to identify potential issues and help with employee selection.
By ensuring your hiring processes are multilayered and include a background check, you can minimize the likelihood of someone with a history of theft joining your company.
Regular meetings provide two-way dialogue and can help with employee morale. You would be surprised to find that many employees steal from their employers because they feel underappreciated and believe stolen parts are a form of compensation.
As a manager, you are responsible for your company’s inventory, so why allow access to everyone in the dealership? It's important to limit the number of individuals who have access to your dealership’s inventory management system and the inventory itself.
When employees outside of the parts department, such as administrators and technicians, can roam the department and pull their own parts you are limiting your ability to effectively manage your parts departments and ensure proper processes are followed. It also makes it difficult to find the source of discrepancies.
Oversight is key. If your employees know that your records are properly maintained and that processes are in place to minimize errors, you will deter your staff from helping themselves to your inventory. This is because they know that discrepancies will be more visible to your team and that they will be investigated.
For assistance with organizing your parts department and creating processes that help minimize the likelihood of internal theft, contact us today.